Last years gardening was not so good and my heart and gut was not in it because of some personal situations. But I am past it and found part of the reason for lousy crops from my raised beds was TREE ROOTS sucking the soil dry!
![Evil or Very Mad :evil:](./images/smilies/icon_evil.gif)
So with alot of effort all soil was removed and the boxes were physically moved and not knowing or being able to find anyone who did know what to put down under them to prevent roots from getting in, I tried something I had laying around. Tyvek house wrap. 3 layers of it under each bed.
Plus I moved the large 1.
Since I was shoveling and handling every molecule of soil,I decided to sift it as I put it back in. I had filled them with random dirt and everything else and there was small rocks and chunks of wood and such. Well if it couldn't go thru a 1/2 hole in screen wire,it got cast out!
A bit of fertilizer was mixed in the soil as I put it in the beds and all seems well.
I felt like if I sifted it and added some more Perlite,it would eliminate any need for tillage as it shouldn't clump or get hard.
Now it can sit a couple months and I can plant.I wanted to get it done last fall but didn't have time.
The first photo shows 1 of many roots that was in the bottom of 1 of the beds. Some were larger.
The second photo shows my sifting screen.To save a small amount of work I put the sifter on the tractor loader bucket and filled the bucket with soil.I also mixed my extra perlite,peat moss and fertilyzer in the soil while it was in the bucket.Then I could drive the tractor over and dump it into the bed and rack it level.
The 4th shows my 2 large raised beds and the 2 real small 1's I will be using for onions.